We were at 16000 feet altitude, the air was thin, and I struggled with my breath as we trudged uphill. Every meter was a struggle, and every step was laborious, heavy & almost unbearable. It wasn’t my first trek, I had been returning to the mountains nearly every year for the last 20 years or more.
The body was creaking, and the mind feared the narrow path. We were traversing a slim section that was quite steep. The ledge was not more than 18 inches in width. The thousand-foot drop on the other side didn't help ease my mind. My imagination was conjuring up images of me hurtling down that slope. It wasn’t possible to slow down & any pause at that stage was dangerous. The air was sharp & there was that wonderful pungent smell. I was breathing in phytoncides, airborne chemicals that plants release to protect themselves from insects. But right now, I was petrified & only hoping to cross that section as fast and as safely as I could.
Heights scare me; I am not a natural for terrain like this. Even peering over the edge of a balcony in a skyscraper makes my heart race and my stomach churn. And no amount of exposure to high-altitude treks has reduced this pain for me. Each time I traverse difficult mountain passes, I wonder why I am attracted to this unique form of personal torture. But the raw beauty of the mountains always keeps me going. The high-pitched whistling of the eagles is enthralling & often makes me want to pause when on a difficult track. And in the background are visible the dazzling Himalayan peaks making it all worthwhile. Sometimes the Himalayan peaks seem so close, almost within handshaking distance, that it transports you into a meditative walk.
And so, the pain of the difficult crossing is always forgotten. The pain was bundled away, to some dark recess of my mind, by the beauty of the mountains. That's how I got back to this trek, greedy for my mountain views. Seeing the ever-changing Himalayan peaks as the sun's angle dipped, I was transported into another world. It was cold, the air was clear, and the expanse of mountains in the background looked like the painting of a master! Time had slowed down, and sometimes the beauty of the mountains took me into a deep meditation. We had left the slightly difficult traverse behind and were now ambling down a gentle descent. Having left the hurry and stress of my urban existence behind, despite my exhaustion, it felt like nirvana.
And then suddenly, out of the blue, we heard a loud crack. It felt like a giant had taken a large log of wood and snapped it across his thigh. Crackle,thump, ka twang. The sound was fun and interesting at first. We were a small group & I tend to be quiet while walking. I like the mountains to fully envelop my senses. So the sound jarred us & made us look up towards the mountains. We knew something was not right though & within seconds, our trek leader shouted, “Avalanche bach ke rahna, find a large rock and go behind it." Initially, we looked around in disbelief, not sure what we should do. Our blissful Himalayan scene was being disrupted in seconds with the power & strength that only nature has. Avalanches move a massive mass of snow, rock, ice, soil, and other material slides swiftly down the mountain. They strike with little warning and can be deadly. The Himalayas contain the third-largest accumulation of ice and snow on Earth, after the north & south poles. And right now, we were the target of the churn the mountain was going through. The next 5 minutes were like a movie being fast-forwarded: stones hurtling down, limbs flaying to get traction on the slope, calling out to each other, dropping our walking sticks & even the small backpack in our rush. Then suddenly, I saw a giant rock and threw myself behind it. In a bizarre few minutes, the heady beauty of the mountains had turned to torment us and show us how puny we were. Some of us screamed, but human sounds were drowned out by the bizarre cracking noise made by the ice. And then the silence, almost like a crowded market suddenly going completely quiet.
As the rock flow subsided, I realized I had survived and could find my breath again. My first reaction was to touch myself to see if I was ok. There was sweat & grime, and some bleeding but nothing serious. This is when you realize how little control you have over life. We were deep inside the glacier, at least 3 days away from a rescue. We didn’t have access to a satellite phone & a chopper rescue was not likely. So it was just the mercy of nature that accounted for all of us being saved that day. That giant rock became my home for the next hour. And I realized that home is where you feel safe “in the moment." And just like dal chawal is a comfort food for me, something I like having when I am stressed or sick. The memory of a home is like a safety signal, something that immediately puts the mind at ease. Even today, when I encounter a crisis, I instinctively look for a big rock to go behind, shelter in, and make my home. The rock is often a person or persons, someone who shelters me from the avalanche of life. I realize that I am living moment by moment in new homes that make me whole again.
Those Himalayas of the mind are not so easily possessed:
There's more than precipice and storm between you and your Everest.
(Day Lewis, Cecil)
I wrote this post as a part of the wonderful writing workshop run by https://natashabadhwar.substack.com/s/ochre-sky-stories
Loved the way you described the visual + sounds + smell to transport one to that moment in time! very enticing as a reader.
Loved it- and your photos are breathtaking!